Untargeted Metabolomics to Interpret the Effects of Social Defeat: Integrating Chemistry and Behavioral Approaches in Neuroscience

Combining behavioral approaches with innovative chemistry techniques is an important first step toward characterizing neurochemicals that could potentially serve as biomarkers related to the prevention, treatment, or diagnosis of psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here, we describe the integration of acute social defeat procedures with untargeted metabolomics techniques in order to identify such biomarkers.